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THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



The Scourge of Mirwayle 



(A Threnody) 



BY 

JOSEPH LAPSLEY MURRAY 



NEW YORK 

THE COSMOPOLITAN PRESS 

1912 



Copyright, 1912, by 
J. L. Murray 



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G,C1.A312754 



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To 
MORDELLO 



The Scourge of Mirwayle 

A Threnody 



PRELUDE 

I 

The Scourge of Mirwayle has haunted the years, 
The frailest of things is hunted and wronged; 

A menace, a sigh, a prophet in tears, 

A burden, a stroke, impending, prolonged ! 

The Child of the ages ! miracle, toy, 
Contention of time and Idol of worlds, 

Prevision of Gods, of rapture the joy, 
Intractable foe of evil, that hurls 

Defiance at death, and clambers above 

The portals of hate to kingdoms of love, 

O Scourge of Mirwayle! 

A vision unveiled of whispering ages : 

Of altars enshrined of temples and steeples : 

Nor vaster concern disturbs nor engages 
The passions inflamed of serious peoples. 

Than burden of seer, or warning of prophet 
Who parries the fall of nations that stumble; 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



If conscience were tangled over the Tophet 

That demons despair, nor eons can crumble, 
Who ventures to weave the screen of detail — 
Of bliss and delight — where cherubs assail 
The Scourge of Mirwayle? 

Arenas and forums, uncomprehended 

Thru cycles of souls of intricate measure. 
Were heralds and symbols, focust and blended 

To sanest displays of passion and pleasure ; 
Nor marvel that men are brothered and guided. 

Or, held to the stress of selfish achievement, 
Are rallied and mocked by fantoms, and chided 

With more than the last assault of bereavement,- 
The nether attempt to buttress the station 
Of insolent death, — the blank consternation, — 
The Scourge of Mirwayle. 

If peril and risk, then wide avocation 

Emboldens the test of largest endeavor, 
Nor seers even hint by scant revelation 

That manhood and death must battle forever; 
The contest is here, — the universe entered : 

No struggle is shunned, no destiny chided; 
In tangles of doubt confusions have centered 

And virtue and vice have met and collided: 
Who eases defeat, who totals the fall. 
The croon of a child, the triumph, the call. 
The Scourge of Mirwayle? 

8 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



II 



No dalliance bars the boldest advances, 

Tho evil intrude its plausible offers; 
Nor demons delude where gladness entrances, 

Tho idleness lure with gold in its coffers : 
But since it were so that virtue were real, 

That honor were more than idle pretension, 
Who, then, shall deny the masterful feal: — 

That Good were beyond the art of invention, 
That Innocence' claim, ''that nothing prevail 
Of evil," were more than fatuous tale, 

O Scourge of Mirwayle? 

Tho power confer, by dint of decreeing, 

The tariffs of life to witch or delusion 
No vision despairs of helplessness seeing 

That death still intrudes the rankest intrusion. 
What mist has not blurred the Vision of years ? 

What f antom not feigned life's fabric with clouds ? 
What sorrow not won from fountains of tears 

The dowries of earth in vestments of shrouds ? 
Is Childhood untold, — left choiceless as matter? 
Must Innocence weep till eons can shatter 
The Scourge of Mirwayle? 

O Luminousness make real the Vision! 

Horizons retreat as eagerness gazes 
At possible heights whose utter decision 

And realm are ablaze with infinite blazes ; 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

No major should taunt the minor refrains, 
For suns are assured since constancy cheers. 

And caskets contain more precious remains 
Because of the Friend with pity and tears; 

All urns are embost with gladness and trust, 

Nor mortals despair, for Heaven is just, 

O Scourge of Mirwayle ! 

Why reckon of Where ? The Here is profound ; 

And presence allots the pleasure of spheres; 
No seeding were cast but harvests abound ; 

And ere they are wept are bottled the tears : 
The Universe thrills with Being and holds 

Assurances that no atom is lost; 
And Fancy is here; tho shadow infolds, 

Her beauty abides; and Mourning is tost 
To barrens of Death, and angels appear. 
And seraphim find that Heaven is Here, 

O Scourge of Mirwayle. 

ni 

The barbs of the thorn are wildly forbidding, 

The tosses of sin no weakling can banter; 
The Infant has fetched a compass in ridding 

The chill of the blast from fiendish enchanter. 
Shall waif be distraught and left to distortion. 

No beauty transform the lust of the valley? 
Shall peoples so hurt — abortive abortion — 

Discover no realm to reckon and rally? 

10 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

No cleft in the rock, no spring at the fountains, 
No rift in the clouds, no peak on the mountains, 
All Scourge of Mirwayle? 

Shall listless surveys imperil the Vision, 

Unlimited cycles shadow the portals? 
Profusion of hope derides the derision 

That time were the rim that circles immortals. 
This problem foretells its own consummations ; 

Thru myriad calls all answers agreeing, — 
Imperial weld of all demonstrations : 

A master avouches permanent Being! 
And Death must respond of empty enthronement 
Since Love has enthroned impartial atonement, 
O Scourge of Mirwayle! 

The Infant awakes the saner laudation, 

Makes beautiful all unselfish surrender; 
Nor yielding the charm of first habitation 

Incarnates for all the foremost Defender; 
Let all of the fays be hooded and knighted. 

The conquest of Death interprets the Vision; 
Since Heaven has smiled the earth is delighted, 

The Scourge of Mirwayle awakens Elysian ; 
And Gladness and Joy, the heralds of ages, 
Engage the Divine where ruin engages 

The Scourge of Mirwayle. 

The dawning of hope! O Prophet of years, 
Integrity toils with virtue and truth! 

II 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

The Infant has won the battle of tears 
And fashioned incarnate promise of youth. 

Immutable gods, the struggle for breath, 
Inscrutable dust, miraculous, gay. 

Who renders reward, defiance of Death? 
The portals of life are fairer than day : 

The burden is sung: the chastisement borne 

Of Master enthroned: no creature need mourn 
The Scourge of Mirwayle! 



12 



The Scourge of Mirwayle 



Remorseless fang, the tooth of Time, 

Revengeful, swift and sure, 
What issues hang of sin and crime 

To damn the immature! 

Aye, he must dare the hidden foe, 

Undaunted press the mask 
Where furies glare, must meet and know; 

The universal task. 

Tho guilelessness should urge and tress 

Abreast unfriendly forces, 
A strange duress of consciousness 

Outlines untrodden courses. 



Undaunted there himself must call, 

Himself demand reply; 
And he must bear the checkered pall 

As echoed from on high. 

13 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Must he respond? as cattle dumb, 
To harnest wheel be driven ? 

He goes beyond; he says, *T come," 
Before the call is given. 

This innocent, untold of arts 

Of speech or eloquence. 
Is eloquent in all the parts 

Of artless innocence. 

3 
Himself agreed in covenants, — 

Integrities sublime, — 
He holds the creed of permanence 

In golden sands of time. 

Some voice accrues of tender wail 

That mocks volcanic fire 
And ceaseless sues the far, "All hail," 

Beyond the near desire. 

4 
Tho immature, — a creedless thing, — 

The sirens urge him on ; 
No novice newer to spite and fling 

Than down his path is gone. 

Must he endure the curse and sting 

Till tardy futures dawn. 
Where cherubs lure and seraphs bring 

What demons had withdrawn ? 

14 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Without pretense, but doomed to all 

The goads of suffering 
And insolence, the frantic hates 

Could yet concoct and bring. 
Such boundless speech appeals to all 

There is of God in him: 
With godlike reach he swings the gates 

For all, — and core and rim. 



II 



A child at play amid his choice 

Of toys ; and uninspired 
Beyond the day wherein he rose 

To what his heart desired, 
Tho prototype and prophecy 

Of biast man, is more 
Than some unripe, delicious fruit 

With wormed and bitter core; 
Is more than mass to be sledge-struck, 

And then of hammered art 
Adorned as brass ; than flower snift 

Awhile and thrown apart, 
And left to chafe where ignorance 

Ignores affinity; 



15 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Is more than waif, tho demons wait, 

With venomed fang and claw, 
Prospective fall, this child, so fair, 

Unused to pain or awe. 
Must seem to all an embryon 

Of pure divinity. 

Aye, so declared in writ and court 

Thru ages long agone ; 
Yet chafed, impaired thru primal lapse, 

He scales the heights of dawn. 

For Gods esteem him so, and men ; 

Yet ghouls their orgies tell 
Thru hazard, scheme, thru banter, risk, 

Thru lurid, putrid hell. 

And these have scarred his soul with pangs 

Of venom and of blight. 
Till, evil-starred, he arms with those 

Accustomed fiends of night. 

And man were that amid the years 

Of youth-begot alloys. 
Engaging at the largess-call 

Where duty shapes employs; 
Were that and more ; for e'en withal 

He counter-flames the ill; 
He goes before: he beckons all 

To highest courts of Will. 

i6 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Himself so frail of counterpoise, 

So rent and shadowed back 
Of dark Mirwayle, that he, of ghouls 

Along the open track. 
Is hurled askance as trifle down 

Beneath the last debris. 
Where demons dance a holocaust 

Of vain security. 

Yet still were he the sovereign lord 

And arbiter of joys. 
To frame and be the prophecy, — 

The throne and crown of poise. 



And yet what scene is this ? a child 

At toys, tho void of fear 
'Mid pleasures keen, is mocked, and knows 

It not, of foeman near. 

The paradox of Hfe were this : 
That playing child should die; 

Have sudden shocks of dastard death. 
And master-issues try. 

The like hath been and who condones 

To mortal mind and sense 
The why of sin, death-plague of all, 

Near-scourge of Providence? 

17 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

The infant dies without a fear, 

Without a hint of sorrow, 
To enterprise the risks and test 

Eternity's to-morrow ; 
Tho sought the while of insolence, — 

The ghost of ghouls forever, — 
Seraphic smile is signaled back 

As seraph's first endeavor. 



So, hedged and met of constant ill 

Thru all the burdened years. 
Responsive yet, he rims and chords 

The harmony of spheres : 
The answered call of masteries, — 

The more than sullen sod, 
He is withal a Veritas, 

An embryonic god. 
To carve and build of dust and straw 

The templed halls of story. 
As writ and willed of life and law 

Thru corridors of glory. 

So ; Gods esteem him so, and men ; 

So Gods their purpose frame 
Thru realms that seem familiar courts 

To his eccentric aim. 



i8 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Persistent gleams of gladness tell, 

Thru witcheries beguiled, 
And say, what seems beyond conceit 

Of doubt, ''Our Father's child." 

And yet 'twere sad — and thought were limp 

Amid terrific woes — 
That mortals had no signs that would 

Their bosom-wrongs disclose; 
'Twere taunt of crime, upheld of judge 

That Beauty were so cheap 
As transient grime ; that Youth were flung 

Apart to garbage heap; 
That Innocence were left to dream 

And croon of doubt ; to wake 
Amid the dense, foul fumes of wreck 

For guilty conscience' sake ! 



And Innocence, itself disposed 
'Mid whorls of doubt, may guide 

Intelligence with ample wit. 
If that should boast but pride. 

What speech can tell the scourge of doom 

That flays to utmost core, 
With wrath of hell, this child of trust 

For aye and aye, and more, 

19 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

If left alone or worse ; can wake 
The conscience and the truth 

Alarm; condone the restlessness 
Of irrepressive youth? 



Unmeasured joy were wished and willed, 

And by all seals conveyed 
To God or toy, who, self-denied, 

Speeds peace and love delayed: 
Shapes right import of Being's why 

With every poised convention 
Of any court of judgment 

And original intention : 
Who hurls confusions with all contempt 

To foundling ignorance 
And sin : delusions and pits that spoil 

The child's significance: 
Who marks the truth as query springs 

Of what is prest of good 
And leads bold youth to baldest heights 

Of conscious rectitude. 



8 



All hail ! all hail ! to him or that : 
And Heaven signals so ; 

No good can fail ; and soon or late 
The most untold shall know. 



20 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



What lure can coy persuasiveness ? 

What eagerness disarm 
The thorn or boy and lend to each 

New piquancy of charm? 

9 

What dextrous hands outline and carve 

To planes of natal beauty 
The borderlands of youth's response 

To ethics, worth and duty ? 

What brother brings climacterics, — 

The unalloyed of earth? 
What sister sings unbroken joys 

In passion-throbs of birth? 

Ah, brother, stay and calculate 
And know the present worth 

Of hour and day,— the brief that adds 
A whit to sister's mirth. 

What curse or ill, demonic, bold, 

Imperious, savage, weak, 
Can yet fulfil the menace and 

The utter vengeance wreak? 

What alien arm can disconcert 

The last resort and plan? 
Without alarm., disturb the thought 

And harmony of man? 

21 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



10 



What skill so urged of selfishness, 

Or yet so prest of art, 
Or whipt and scourged of conscience thru 

The provinces of heart, 
That guides the weak and ignorant 

Securely thru the straits 
And barrens, bleak with evil and 

The fiendishness of hates. 
To lofty planes of rectitude 

Where consciousness of truth 
Inspires and trains the equipoise 

And purity of youth ? 

If Patience tread her forward path. 
Composed, conclusive, clear. 

No curse can spread the wails of woe 
To realms of such a sphere. 



II 



And Equipoise itself must guide 

The halting amateur 
Abreast the joys unspeakable; 

And so withal must lure 
Aloft the heir of great desire. 

So big with late distractions 
And fiercest stare of sacrifice, 

To later satisfactions. 



2.2. 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



12 

And Purity, no less serene 

Itself, shall guide with all 
Security the frailest thing, 

Should ill and menace fall. 

Tho elf s have strewed the earth with films 

Of mystery and blight, 
And imps eschewed persistent good 

In contravening right. 
The flowers elude the stains of soil 

While struggling out of night 
And burst their hearts with gladness, tint. 

With sweetness and perfume, 
Till beauty starts remotest climes 

And continents with bloom. 

13 

Are soils so skilled of wisdom, or 

Is Nature so imbued 
With love and filled with good as guides 

A plant to certitude? 

14 

Yet here we see a tender thing, 

Of so divine a strain 
That naught can be more pure, nor aught 

So liable to stain: 



23 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

A cherub poised amid the shoals 

Of conflict still untold 
Of what is noised of destiny, — 

About the life unrolled, 
Of love ingrained, — a mystery 

That angels shun or meet 
With dread, as pained of awe to peer 

On parchments pure and sweet ! 



15 



Attackt, careened, distraught, opprest, 

Pursued of dogged Fate; 
Ensnared, maligned, misjudged, condemned, 

Accurst of frothing hate: 
Such blasts as that of vengeance and 

Mirwayle, the frail appall: 
Magnificat ! no menace of 

The stroke declares the fall. 



Ill 



But amateurs — amazing fact — 
Bewilderment of thought — 

Fling wide the sewers of risk and pass 
Unchallenged what is brought. 



24 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Does constancy elude the love 

And innocence of youth? 
What quality of stuff is woe 

Or bliss ? Where lurks the truth ? 

3 

What alchemy of action, or 

What synthesis of love, 
What chemistry of living chymes 

Can lead this child above 
The pits of woe and poise his wings 

Untried where angels kiss 
The bright-hued bow that weeps and laughs 

Its promises of bliss? 

4 

Should act of thine, by strange mischance, 

Cause wild foreboding in 
The basest spine, 'twere pagan not 

To mend such overt sin ; 
Could act of mine disarm the hordes 

Of evil tempting this 
Frail, pliant vine, 'twere godless not 

To seize such chance of bliss. 

Has Equity forgot his skill, 

Compassion left her throne? 
Or destiny dismantled Love 

And fled this waif alone? 

25 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

And still unwarned, must he be left 
To guess and grope his way 

Amid the scorned and barren wastes 
Of being up to day? 

What chance so skilled of justice, or 

What fortune so imbued 
With right, or willed to good, that leads 

The soul to rectitude? 



The arts of deft and skilful Khem, 

Beyond alchemic power 
Of thought, have left indelibly 

Their hues upon life's flower; 
Beyond his skill or wisdom, weave 

Thru life the silent threads 
Of worth and will where Character, 

So boldly conscious, treads ; 
Beyond his will or wish, have sunk 

Their hidden venoms there, 
And there distil, thru all the years, 

The bitter-sweet of prayer ; 
Or blast and bane the fruitage of 

The soul and sift it down 
The fitful train of circumstance 

Where scowling demons frown. 



26 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Must amateurs avouch no hope? 

Defend no battlefield? 
Assault no lures where frightened waif 

Has long, in vain, appealed? 

Where fateful sewers of ill, with big 
Discharge, are left unhealed. 
Proclaim no cures ? have rounded naught 
Of nectars capt and sealed? 

The thorn and snare have pitted, gnarled 

And wrested, mesh and core 
Of life; left bare the provinces 

Of bloom; and where, before 
The sin and curse laid death and dearth 

On regions proud and fair, 
A universe of love were found ; 

This hurt must have repair. 



The frailest germs, as formed and shaped 

To spectral lines, have woke 
To highest terms of self, and told 

Vast risks since Being spoke ; 
Have poised above with lordships high, 

Kept troth themselves within 
The courts of love, and man is left 

To bitterness and sin: 



27 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

And told or not, these germs have yet 

Themselves, with silent awe, 
Disclosed the blot incurred by man 

Thru disregard of law ; 
Have edged thus near the cobble-stones 

For his assured advance. 
As if of fear he miss or slight 

The one significance: 
That he were child ; have mastery 

Himself of highest birth; 
As undefiled have sport with Gods, 

Himself the sport of earth. 



8 



No link is gone : the multi-hosts 
Are mast and ranked to hedge 

The errant pawn and fix his gaze 
Athwart the bonded pledge. 

Tho unattained and hope be still 

Deferred, incessant prayer 
Breaks unexplained from him if love 

Be not for him somewhere. 

Were skies as dumb — compassionless- 
As what they sometimes seem, 

No cry could drum response beyond 
The throes of garish dream. 

28 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

'Twere for his sake, and not his bane 

Contentions high were met; 
Must he have dreams, yet moan but wails 

And f antoms of regret ? 



He yet must wake to visions that 

Himself hath hopeless sought, 
To bolder schemes and purposes 

Than born of chosen thought; 
Must peer and gaze with equipoise — 

With bold and moteless eyes — 
Upon the ways concealed beyond 

The problems of the wise ; 
Must know the grail of last resort 

In full monitions given ; 
Must scourge Mirwayle; with trust assault 

The battlements of Heaven. 

And sprung to this, his victories 

Are foreordained and won 
Of hope and bliss before the test 

Of battles is hegun. 



IV 



This child in tears, with upward gaze 
And prayer, from sudden start 

29 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

As ill appears, withal appeals 
To primal love and heart; 

Finds more than balm for all his ills, 
And echoes far and near 

Triumphant psalm, interpreted 
And told : There is no fear. 

*Twere ever so ; and now and aye. 

Except for dregs of hell 
That sift below his life and hurt 

With fumes as foul as fell. 



Yet whence has sprung mad progenies 

That shape such deadly fruit 
For one so young? Amazed, appalled, — 

Left uninspired and mute, — 
He gropes and reels, with shadowed dread. 

Where he should laugh and leap. 
Make glad appeals from mystic dreams 

Of vagueness, swoon and sleep, 

To certitude ; yet never once 

In thought concealed behind 
False brotherhood ; nor lost of self 

In universal mind 
Of sphinx or maze : himself he is, 

To dream, if need, and face 
Unblushed the gaze analysis 

Confers : consummate grace ! 

30 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

3 

Misunderstood, assailed, or where 

Or how of hell, he's found 
Of every good : since fair the form 

And vision, hope and ground 
Of rectitude, attackt of ill, 

He doth the ill astound ; 
In brotherhood is leagued of life, 

Himself the unconfound. 

What love can sink beneath such depths ? 

What blasts of hell consume? 
And, from the brink of woe, lift bliss 

And heaven out of doom? 



With myriad rays where myriad hues 

Of tangled blues abound, 
The stars have blazed for aye, nor yet 

One seeming ill has found 
Their morning days ; yet f antom ghosts 

Deport him round and round 
Till, wandering dazed, he fingers wild 

At tame uncertainty; 
Or blamed, or praised, he seeks and knows 

It not, the equity 
Of just caress ; hears utmost Voice ; 

But deeming outer calls 
Delusiveness, he grasps in vain 

At self-support, and falls. 

31 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



But list again : articulate 

He hears ; he sees ; and more 
Than shapes of men appear; a touch 

And thrill as naught before; 
For Hand were placed about his frame, 

'Twere tender — heart and core: 
Of loves embraced, — such Brother-love 

As ne'er he'd felt before. 



And purpose, high and deep as life 

Has won or hope inspires. 
Permits no why, till he has spun 

The flame, that, quenchless, fires 
The god of him again, with last 

Assault to risk the vast 
Tho mystic rim of life, and bear 

His portions thus amast. 



'Twere no surprise nor wonder he 

Renews the strife: a worm 
Would paralyze the Fates or make 

Uncertain footing firm, 
Tho forced appeals from failure trip 

Till hopeless seems the stand, 
If it but feels the friction of 

A mobile grain of sand. 



32 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Beatitude ! Tho hound of ill, 

He presses to his own 
Wide interludes of possibles 

And hithers yet unknown. 

Fair dreamer, still pursued, still bear 

The judgment of thy lot; 
Hope's wishes will fruition bring 

When anguish is forgot: 
The suns are spaced, and stars are fixt 

Of blues to tide thee well; 
For one embraced of love as thou 

Is never hoped of hell. 



V 



O tender weaver what tasks for thee, 

What bold ambitions thine! 
What torrid fever can urge thee up 

This hazardous incline? 
Or, fateful turn thee down hell's gulfs 

With speed of frenzied hates. 
With wraths to spurn all profferd aid 

From half-propitious mates? 



33 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



What meager need ! A hut or hall, 

A cave or kindly tree, 
Has answered him when poverty 

Had feasted on a crust; 
And yet his creed proclaims the search 

Of vast eternity! 
The utmost rim of passion does. 

As vaster being must, 
Respond to him, who, seeking God, 

Were winnowed from the dust 
To bloom and seed within the courts 

Of immortality. 



VI 



Who reckons here must rise above 

All passion. Reason, aim 
And purpose, sheer as death and glad 

As love, must delve and frame 
Each under-beam and architrave, 

Lay deep the corner-stone; 
No buccaneer can issues meet 

Where he contends alone. 
No fragile dreams for him create 

Life's lone and awful cone : 
Prediction seems at flood exprest 

In storm-lit chaos flown; 

34 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

But scheme of schemes' fulfilment throbs 

In life's distorted moan, 
Till fault appear devoid of sham, 

To Christ-like stature grown. 



Yet once are laid her mighty beams, 

'Tis sentiment adorns 
The grand facade with brilliancies 

From God's supernal morns. 

And shouldered to such comradeships, 
He answers hiss and call. 

And pressing thru the wildest waste 
He reigns the carnival. 



With lavish brush is pigmented 

Each virtue strong and clear, 
Till Beauty flush her complements 

On every feature here; 
Till Worth has brought and filtered thru 

Her essences with care. 
And Youth has sought perfection out 

And hid his passions there; 
Till all the loves of all the hearts 

And Heaven's preciousness — 
Beneaths, aboves — are flung to one 

So worthy of caress ! 

35 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

And yet withal of fatal tread 

He crushes bud and flower, 
Inflames the thrall that menaces 

The corner-stones of power, 
Or shapes a thing to every sense 

Abhorrent; that repels, 
With spite and fling, all terrible. 

The imps of nether hells. 



To be and feel were all sublime 

Above the dull death-rust 
Of sodden weal, — to highest forms 

Is shaped the flimsy dust. 

As time has fraught the frailest wish 

With largest aspirations, 
So Youth has caught the pentacost 

Of vaster consecrations. 

To be and feel the thought and will 

Were provinces of man, 
And half reveal who carved the pier 

Of his stupendous plan: 
To round the lines, adorn the shapes 

And spur to lofty aim 
Were countersigns of Sin's defeat 

And Death's disastrous shame. 

36 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

5 
What wraith or power shall reel shy, thin 

Threads of life and blend 
Of debt and dower earth's canopies 

To fitly comprehend 
The sacred bower he seeks ; shall grow 

With him, with him ascend 
Thru life's brief hour : from final heights 

Pour fruitage in the end? 

6 

Majestic poise: the royalties 

Of royalty enthroned; 
No throne destroys a kingdom won 

Of what the man atoned 
Thru sacrifice of self for sin 

And others' benefaction; 
The paradise of privilege. 

The willingness of action — 
Permuted joys — must yet become 

Dominion's first attraction. 

Imperfect blooms have oft matured 

A fruit well worth the seeing ; 
Thru rare perfumes have frankly poured 

Life's just reply of sweetness ; 
From hurtling wombs of darkling frown 

Brought aftermath's repleteness ; 
So man assumes in sentient self 

The last resort of being. 

37 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



7 

By what consent — wo-worth the thought- 
Shall issues unassumed 

Have voice or vent thru judgment grave 
Or chivalries foredoomed? 

No lord escapes the law by mere 

Mechanical evasions, 
Howe'er he apes the Gods or feigns 

Conventional occasions. 

vn 



Assumed unsought the vested charge 

That angels gladly shrink ? 
Prenatal thought in embryo! 

How possible to think 
That man could be, unless as child 

Of God or pregnant cell. 
That must agree to risk the threats 

Insanely hatched of hell, 
H there be given, withal, the chance 

To be embodied truth. 
To mold the leaven of virile love 

Where stalwart right, forsooth, 
Had always striven thru Time's defeats 

To aid what form and feature 
Would issue Heaven for lowest types 

Of any sentient creature? 

38 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

A lord in form should be in fact 

Beyond inspector's ken ; 
Should dread no storm discernment brews 

Within the courts of men. 



Beatitude! What swings of poise 
And sanity must witness 

The utmost good of thing or soul 
In love's eternal fitness ! 

No councils high, convened of least 
Pretensions, say that man 

Must make reply to what was not 
Agreed in writ and plan. 

And God in fact is so in form, 
Tho man unveiled were blind ; 

Whate'er the pact, His will declares 
That He unleashes mind. 



But Duty stands : nor long can man 

Evade authentic pause; 
For all commands are final in 

The lexicon of laws. 



39 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Is Will decree ? E'en Will avails 
In man and worm and sod, 

Because of plea of councils that 
Were held of them and God. 



'Twere good to Be, tho driven back 

Of Hazard, hist and tost 
Of Poverty, — the test and claim 

Of scorn and blight and frost: 
Tho stars of night should never solve 

The mystery of tears. 
It were no slight to be a thing, — 

A mote amid the spheres. 

Yet 'twere sublime to be a man: 

To suffer and endure, 
To spurn the slime of touch and be 

Immaculate and pure ; 
Defy the crime, — unparalleled 

Of want, tho immature, — 
And thence to climb the rungs of life 

And forest-blaze the newer! 



5 

What happiness to thirst, to feel 
The pang of urgent need, 

The rasping stress of appetite, — 
Desire that craves to feed 

40 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Unsatisfied, immortal hope 

And toil : he bows and thrives 
Where most denied, where most distraught, 

There still more greatly strives. 

Maturity? Beatitude! 

To claim the longer term, 
To serve and seize beyond the realms 

Of sod and thoughtless worm 
Were liberties proclaimed of man 

Beyond the mote or germ. 
Unfurled and free to be matured, — 

The centuries affirm. 

If bliss were lost, no surer path 

Could clue the maze of joy, 
Nor at less cost than his to find 

The wizard of employ: 
Surchanged, he reels intoxicate 

Of wines of joy embrewed 
Oi last appeals of suffering 

To universal good. 



It were not willed of dust, — this wealth; 

Nor codicil conveys 
How wrought and filled the thing that grows 

In spiritual clays ; 



41 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Nor rusts corrode, thru waste and blight 

To Time's remotest knave, 
The mystic lode that lures and leads 

Alike the weak and brave. 

No goal is past: propitiousness 

Discreetly spurs him on, 
With hopes aghast, to haunts beyond 

The rims of anxious dawn. 
And there unbinds the willing feet 

Of urgent constancy, 
Until he finds himself surcharged 

With virile mastery. 

No slave of need is whipt of scourge 

Or hunger more than he; 
Nor fiery steed is driven more 

Of any destiny : 
He goes abreast of Fate : he knows 

No boundaries of goals 
Nor courts he rest till lodged amid 

The corridors of souls. 



Sublime it were to be a man : 
To press the gates of strife : 

From thence confer to millions more 
Triumphant grasp of Hfe. 



i 



42 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

And this to know of possibles : 

Not one is bound upon 
The Hne below the privilege 

Of tithing what is won. 

And so he far outstrips the tithe, — 

All merit swears he must; 
'Tis frictions are the bustlingness 

That paralyzes rust: 
If once he mars authentic fields 

By sterilizing dust, 
Then more : he bars God's high behest 

By vitalizing lust. 

So virtue leads benevolence 

With active fervency, 
And fixes creeds of humari love 

In GENEROSITY. 



8 



So he achieves impossibles, 
And grasps the never seen. 

With faith believes the Optimist 
Who verifies the mean. 

And so there comes of press and stir 
The struggle, fatuous, wild, 

That knits and sums the hazardous. 
Triumphant, sane and mild; 



43 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Yet never numbs the hope and dash 

That spur this courtly child, 
Amid earth's slums, exposed and lured, 

To seek the undefiled. 

VIII 
I 

O love and home, what powers are thine ! 

What fragrant sweets distil 
From shrine to dome, to woo this child 

Of upward wish and will ! 

And "where is home but with the loving?" 

Where devotion starts 
If love should roam, with shudders that 

Bewilder human hearts ? 

Enchantment's dream! A universe 

In limits all its own, 
Where vistas seem infinitude, 

Where grief and tears condone, 
Within the zone of sovereignty 

And home, — the paradise 
Where love is known in offering 

The altar's sacrifice. 



Enchanted blues, in rhythmic whorls, 
Perspective, fiery, new, 

44 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Evolve the clues of beaten bliss, 
Transporte'd, weld and hue, 

And bring to him in haste, profuse 
Confessions out of night, 

That naught can dim the realms of love 
Within the realms of right. 



The stars confess, with dimpled glow 
And more with sparkling blush, 

The love-caress of love at home 
When whispers charm and hush. 

But stars are dumb and realms are pent, 

Amid the vast processions, 
When Love is come, and, voiceless, fills 

Unspeakable confessions 
With songs of hymn and harmony; 

And he is key and chord. 
Upon the brim of holdings where 

The heart is sovereign lord. 



IX 



O wish and will, that woo this child 
With tipv/ard glance and turn. 

Why not fulfil the longings now 
That cause his heart to yearn? 

45 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Why thus defer? Why not at once 

Anticipate? make good 
What must occur? What world-old seers 

Have always understood? 
Why linger thru the disciplines, 

The struggles and temptations? 
Why not accrue the essences 

To final consummations? 

Is all pursuit? Must love elude 

Integrity? be won 
As savage loot? No cessions there 

If having once begun? 



O cry and stress that urge him thru 
Such adventitious venture; 

What omens press refinements where 
The ghouls reek blame and censure! 

What hunger his, what cravings still 

Unsatisfied, what charm 
Of beatuy is embraced of love 

With loved ones in alarm ! 



Beatitude! What safety and 
Contentment of concern, 

46 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

What constant good provision brings 
When vital issues turn ! 

No fear can daunt, nor alien love 

Allure, nor wish elude, 
Nor meager want forego supply, 

Nor enemy intrude; 
For once enshrined of sacred holds — 

Affection-fortified — 
In heart and mind, what sacrifice 

Of life or love denied? 

He laughs at scorn without, within 
Reveals his strength, enlarged 

Upon the morn of love : nor stays 
Till duty is discharged. 



With love unfeigned he guarantees 

All manly avenues. 
And leaves unstained the robes of right; 

With rectitude pursues 
The unattained of prior hope; 

He neither rests nor rues 
Of largess gained; he presses on, 

Unswayed of parvenues. 



Tho there he fail, he there attempts 
The more ; tho naught accrue 

47 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Of yon entail of heritage, 

He presses boldly thru 
The thorofares of sinecures 

And gleans of other wheats 
Than common tares; an issuance 

Beyond the wares and cheats 
Inheritance may yield — ^beyond 

The bluster and the low 
Significance of wealth, he strives 

Himself to shape and know. 



If right were not his right who claims, 

Then claiming often must, 
To answer what response confers. 

Be catalogued of lust; 
And he admits a passion here, — 

A longing for the hand 
That yields the writs of righteousness 

In equals councils planned. 

And tales may prove his claim were high, 

And judged of last resource 
Of ethic love, who then may bear 

The first unjust divorce 
Of righteousness ? — that long detail 

Of ill, withholden good. 
The wild duress of emptiness 

And moral platitude? 

48 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Not merely high, — his claim were just, 
For justice has concurred; 

And such reply must have response 
Ere selfishness is heard. 



8 



Community and brotherhood. 

And share and share alike, 
Law, history, declare naught else, 

Or other portions strike. 
Nor halt to chide of compromise 

Or pique of dalliance: 
No problem tried can show unblushed 

A fairer countenance. 



If old discounts were sought and found, 

Or judgment rested there, 
He might denounce the pittance lost, 

As cheat of hapless care; 
If hint of right were his, and that 

Must still unquestioned be 
The polar light of duty, — sane, 

Impassioned, fixt, but free. 
And balanced goad, — that urges him 

Beyond the first intense, 
Tho partial code, to entries vast, — 

Of soul to soul immense. 



49 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Such lofty aims, so vast they chill 

More timid souls, inspire 
All mighty frames, tho stunned of sense, 

Beyond star-dusts and higher. 



lO 



Were these his own ? there rushes forth 

Congenial atmospheres 
To brace and tone the fiber of 

The frailest harvesters, 
Who, tho unknown, were comrades boon 

Of Heaven's first desire; 
Whose rimless zone of harmony 

Must woo excelsior nigher 
The ceaseless quest, unfagging hope. 

The utmost grasp of man 
Whose love confest must carve and shape 

To some diviner plan. 



X 



i 



Beatitude! How blest the airs, 

All vital cells attest! 
Since all is good, in bosoms fit, 

All being is carest. 

50 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



2 



But man, unsolved of pride or worth, 

On potent missions bent, 
Becomes involved with powers high; 

And there receives the rent 
That gapes to hell, appeals to great 

Compassion: still uncured, 
Must touch and tell intelligence 

Benign thru utmost woes; 
To all frontiers must tell what man 

As man has here endured 
Of hopes and fears: how triumph with 

Defiance overthrows 
The Alps of doubt till, mastering 

Himself, tho scarred and worn, 
He puts to rout the imps and fiends 

Which hither he had borne. 



To ease and doff the vast concerns 

Of men, as baldest chance 
With sneer and scoff, were caper-timed 

Or witless ignorance; 
Or lower cast, as flung of hell. 

In wild and blunt excess, 
All virtue past, were but the bluff 

Of bald maliciousness. 



51 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Now, since he sows to sacred soils, 

With equipoise he goes. 
Lest evil blows to barrenness 

What righteousness bestows; 
Lest wide concern of high report 

Is left to ill and marred. 
He yet must earn his trophied good 

From Self, the evil-starred. 

For right is right, and law is law, 

And God the undenied; 
And naught may blight itself of right. 

Since Christ is crucified. 

4 

Why thus declare within sane realms 

Of mind where science hurls 
Her gaze and glare across the orbs 

And boundaries of worlds? 
Where thought of man, tho hurled aloft, 

Is hedged by curve and bound 
To settled plan of plat and chore 

Within some vast profound? 

Tho query lower and answers balk 
And stoop and swoon to earth, 

Yet cavils roar in ignorance 
Thru high pretense of worth. 

Yet man is urged to vast estates 
Nor chance can unrelate 

52 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Him who, tlio scourged of dark Mirwayle, 
Hath answers soon and great. 



The ill-advised, within the mask 

Of frenzy, deaf and blind, 
Or well-disguised Utopias, 

Can never hope to find 
And fix a shape in semblances 

Of any sport or child, 
Or e'en to drape comparisons 

To distances so wild. 
As thus is found in cosmic man, 

The one atomic mote 
That whirls around the Mighty as 

Reputed Thing of note. 

The Man has come ; Mirwayle must go 

To kingdoms well defined; 
Must go abashed, must go abaft, 

Must go to utmost rout; 
Must go till lashed of self-remorse 

With justest scourge and knout; 
And naught is dumb with voice to sing 

But sings of love enshrined. 

6 

On life's brief span, athwart the gulfs 
Of fierce contending barriers, 

53 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Is girded man for Gods and imps, 
As stern opposing carriers, 

To issue on ; to greet and lodge 
The ghosts that deaths devour, 

As battles dawn to test the might 
And lurking place of power ! 

Like mighty elf, from tragic deeds 

The one incarnate Man 
Had swung Himself across the gulfs 

Ere sin in sooth began 
To lift its form of hybrid ghouls. 

As fiendish horror would. 
To threat and storm the last resort 

And citadel of good. 



What reeking fields confuse the gaze 
From heights of being, where 

The evil yields the victory 
To suffering and to prayer ! 

And ere there rise and flee the smoke 

And carnage of defeat. 
The demon flies as woe and wail 

Dismisses his retreat 
Within the folds of insolence, 

Profanity and shame. 
Where Hades holds to hounds of hell 

The lips and fangs of flame: 

54 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Where all that howl must deafen death 

With consternations blind, 
Till demons foul exude the breath 

Of hell to hell assigned. 



XI 



Unconscious suns, with matchless blaze, 

Are hid from peering eyes 
As each one runs his lawful course 

Within unbosomed skies; 
Nor hitch nor jar thru centuries 

Disturbs this ceaseless race 
Where, flung afar in majesty. 

Each spins the threads of space, 
So grandly beautiful that spawns of hate 

Can but adore or hide 
In suave and dutiful acceptance of 

Unknown, subconscious pride ; 
And these inscrutable ambitions are 

No single man denied. 

A universe were each alone 

Of wonders so profound 
That to rehearse the tenth were vain ; 

As atoms outerbound 



55 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

In anxious poise, they seek the rims 

Of space ; nor interfere 
Where God's envoys thru solitudes 

Of boundless vasts career: 
Where harmony is pitched to keys 

Of universal bars 
Of unity; nor selfishness 

Betrays, nor discord mars, 
With rasping stress, the rhythmic swells 

Of star and universe ; 
There is no guess : for offspring but 

Proclaims the patron nurse; 
From cosmic mess was called and ranked 

The vast domain of stars 
Whose yea and yes declare the One 

Who rimes the medleyed bars. 



Could selfishness the equipoise 

Of worlds disturb at odds, 
What mad duress woufd wreck these most 

Companionable gods ! 

So like to man : thru passion-sweeps 

Of toil and sweat he runs — 
None other can — the gauntlet of 

Ambition with the suns. 



56 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

4 

Nor harbors doubt if will or wish 

But urge or favor him; 
Nor halts about ability 

To trace the utmost rim 
Of his desire ; he only chafes 

Of fiends obstructing him, 
In rising higher on ready wings 

Of urgency and vim. 

No jot is lost in all the whorls 

Of white and gold and blue; 
Thru realms of frost or fire, or twixt, 

No scruple need accrue 
With skies embost with amber-tints 

From last retorts of hue; 
And hither tost of space these suns 

The untrod paths pursue ! 



Thru time's consent, in early paths 

They skipt and ran as lambs 
Of firmament; and revel still 

In first attempted psalms : 
When just begun these trials, won 

Of flight, foretold the speeds 
That star and sun acquire and run 

Where timbered tension leads; 

57 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Till face to face with power and place, 

As ages startled gaze, 
They coy and race thru outer space 

Athwart the rhythmic blaze; 
And on, and on, to wider dawn, 

When folded centuries 
Are come and gone, they still but yawn 

Their morning symphonies. 



O man why fret and squirm within 

This lilliputian cell? 
This sense forget, as yet thou may. 

And with all worthies dwell ! 

7 

No truth is lost in all the whorls 

Of ether, maze or clue; 
Nor virtue crost of ethics by 

The morals of the few. 
To men embost with intellect 

That seraphim review: 
Hence, hither tost of Mind, O man, 

Essential good pursue! 

Go, then, with thought, as yet thou must, 

On fullest paths of light. 
For space has naught to bar thy suit 

In comradeship with flight; 

58 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Anticipate the shrine of suns 

And there erect thy booth ; 
They fly : yet late they hail thy posts, 

If thou abide with truth. 

8 

All laws are thine : incarnate law 

Thyself : thyself regard ! 
In thee align all paths, if closed, 

'Tis thou thyself hast barred: 
Swing wide the gates, whose portaled ways 

Uncage the tethered soul 
That frets and waits this liberty 

Of thine, this thought parole! 

No winged thing can soar like thee. 

If thou permit the hours 
To loose and bring to equipoise 

Thy hurt, offended powers ! 

If thou but woo propitious wraiths 

To aid my yearning soul. 
No flight were too unparalleled 

To stay thy utmost goal. 

No darkness falls but prophesies 

A morning far and wide ; 
Nor moated walls than those of flesh 

Have ever so defied. 

59 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Can these always this struggle thwart, 

Intense, unbroken be? 
Orion blaze for aye and aye, — 

The sun and stars go free, — 
While man surveys thru films of sense 

His tardy destiny? 
Or thought appraise herself in flesh 

Thruout eternity? 

10 

O spirit-mind, thy realms, tho pent, 

Thy toil and hope endure: 
Thy thought refined, thy tasks assuage, 

And thy rewards mature! 

Anticipate the goal of love 

And there erect thy shrine ; 
She flies : nor late she hails thy posts, 

H thou and she combine. 

To be a man were so sublime 

That never man conceived 
The outer plan achievement wins 

Of what himself believed. 

II 

So won of love, so lost to hate. 
So keyed and closeted 

60 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

To realms above the temporal, 

He reckons not the dead 
Decays that slough of mortal wares ; 

He grasps the far extremes 
That mold the rough exteriors, 

And lifts the mists whence beams 
His counterpart in splendors all 

Diffused with fervency 
Whose burning heart forebodes and guards 

The throne of majesty. 

For man were built to wider plans 

Than fall of time and sense: 
Tho stung of guilt, incarnate tears 

Surpass his mad offense. 
Since such were so, and man were so, 

So must it be that he 
Must somehow go beyond the birth 

Of earthly destiny. 

12 

The unexplained of hope deferred, 

Of life's perpetual care, 
Were not distrained of him, if love 

Were not for him somewhere. 

To be complete a man must be 

Entangled and entwined, 
Beyond conceit and unconfined, 

With sanest love and mind. 

6i 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



XII 



O patient child, how soon the years 

Of sluggish pain are spent : 
How far and wild would seem the path 

Where weary steps are bent 
If it were not for fragrant dews 

That light the inner way ; 
Or griefs forgot in stress of joys, 

How filled with wide dismay! 



If ill were what the years propose, 

The centuries convey, 
How then allot the equities? 

The purposes obey? 



A child at play! O patient child, 

Impatient yet to go ! 
Why urge the day ? My heart hath tears ! 

Why leave me weeping so? 

Hast thou foreseen Elysian fields 
That thou must haste to tread? 

Thy sight seems keen, but mine is blurred,- 
My tears embalm the dead. 

62 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Ah, spirit-child, when once 'tis known 
Rough paths are lately made 

Across the wild frontiers of death, 
How hot the tears conveyed ! 



As there is given to direst hours 

Of anguish, croons and dreams 
Of stars and heaven, so utter night 

Gives overpowering beams 
That dart and gleam like fairy elfs 

Of pure phantastic birth 
Beyond all dream of ecstasy 

Or strangest moods of mirth, — 
The mirth that flows of faith and joy — 

Conviction run to flower — 
Which Nectar chose when roses blusht 

And Beauty kist the bower. 

XIII 



Vast force is spent to keep yon frame 

In mighty balance swung, — 
Yon boundless tent of bending skies 

As universe out-hung, — 
And thru all time the lamps of God 

In rhythmic cycles wheel; 
More than sublime direct their course 

To some remote appeal. 

63 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

They hum the dirge and thread the maze 

Of vague etheric spheres, 
Nor yet converge to chaos thru 

A thousand million years. 



Outspread in space unfathomed gulfs 

Thru outer reaches deep, 
They reel and race in high career 

With whirl and dash and sweep; 
They still invite the gaze of man, 

Beyond earth's rugged steep. 
Thru blazing night to flounder in 

The mysteries they keep. 



Out thru the grand, dumb silences. 

They tempt and woo him higher 
Than hither planned, until the soul 

Absorbs the opaled fire 
And burning blues of folded heat 

From out their own abysms : 
He still pursues with holy gaze 

And consecrated chrysms 
Their upward lead; unrivaled there. 

He claims those realms his own: 
Tho prest of need he lordly bears 

As if he ruled alone. 

64 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

No sun renews for second tests 

The races first begun, 
But still pursues of Primal Force 

Vast distances unwon. 

The leech and snide achieve by rounds 

And rounds of repetitions : 
Kind Gods provide kind cessions for 

Such quarter-deck positions. 

4 

Must man ascend thru disciplines, 

Tho signally defeated? 
All good offend by languid moods 

As o'er and o'er repeated? 

Must he, attired of dignities. 

Return godlike returns? 
Of virtue fired, retorch his shrines 

Where alien incense burns? 

That Primal Force is pledged to guide 

Him back to normal places 
Thru upward course, averse of pride, 

To meet exalted races; 
From sources' Source adorns him with 

The rationale of graces ; 
Repeats, per force of love of him, 

Most cardinal embraces. 

6s 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

5 

And light accrues athwart his path 

To justify the plan, 
Since godlike thews thru eons urge 

This God-empiric man; 
So that he hymns with recklessness, — 

With scant regard for sorrow, — 
Fore-handed trims the edge of grief 

For gladness and to-morrow. 



What furies urge to labors vast, 

Titanic, stunned and curbed? 
What powers sane contrive to shape 

And poise the sane result 
Where boon and bane are fused or foiled 

By agencies occult? 
Beneath what scourge of driven slave. 

With purpose undisturbed, 
Does he engage where conquest's fields 

Are fiercely sought and won? 

Himself a sage or fool for time 

And sphinx to gaze upon ; 
Or both, as they may wit, by whim 

Or prayer or platitude 
Of choice, to flay or praise him for 

His labors high or crude? 
Should he array as ill or good 

Earth's restless interlude? 

66 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

7 

Must he go eke from brevity 

Existence bare and lean? 
May he not seek continuedness 

With high and courtly mien? 

Or, in the coup of battlements, 

Must he be cast within 
Debris to hew, as best he may, 

Unequal tilts with sin? 

May he not test ? may he not dare ? 

With violence assault 
The crown and crest of everywhere 

To spoil the throne of fault? 

May he not speed of friend and foe 
His judgment, godHke, keen? 

Ah, he may plead at every court 
Where love may intervene. 

Since finite powers of frailty are 

The imps that hamper him. 
Can time's brief hours recoup the toils 

That cause his brain to swim ? 

8 

Mirwayle, Mirwayle, in strange duress, 

A signal voice is heard! 
Why not curtail thy tariffs ere 

Dire potencies are stirred? 

67 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

The paths of stars scarce symbolize 

The stages he must know, 
Nor ether bars his distances 

As zoneless ages go. 

The morning hymn of infancy, 
As sung of human chords, 

Must seraphim remotest toils 
That thrill remote rewards. 

Condensed, refined, remodeled for 

A thousand times, his toils 
Of heart and mind must channel down 

The years their autumn spoils. 



That he were wise were well : and so 

He loiters not abroad 
Beneath foul skies as if the sport 

Of chance or child of fraud. 
But must be wooed : with greed he haunts 

All coverts low and high, 
Till he has sued the wraiths of wit, 

Of woodland and of sky. 

The fauns and terns of forest-wilds, 
With witching call and blow. 

Where moss and ferns in native dells 
In fragrant tresses flow, 

68 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Are piping to his willing ears 
Thru chorust lutes and lyres, 

Till song falls thru a wilderness 
Of golden fluted choirs. 

The blues bend down, the stars peep thru 

The whirr of airy wings, 
Till wood and town but echo back 

What Nature wildly sings ; 
Enshrine regards for harmony, 

In music undefiled. 
Till all the bards of all the songs 

Have spoken medleys wild. 

Enrapt of this, remote and nigh, 

Are rushing wildly thru, 
The nodes of bliss, till chord and flute 

And throat are strung anew: 
Past all control of inner fires. 

These rhapsodies entrance. 
Till heart and soul of orchestras 

Become the utterance. 



lO 



O it were sad to chase a fool. 

Like hob-nob pendulum, 
From good to bad ; a nondescript 

That time may thread and thrum; 

69 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Recurring curse and toy balloon 

Of vital human mystery, 
A universe that emptiness 

May brand as vacant history. 

O it were joy without alloy, 
With nature wild and free, 

To be a boy in high employ 
Of self and liberty. 

A prince were he of high degree 
Beyond that written down: 

From destiny his majesty 
Demands no other crown. 

O it were rude to chafe and brood 
Where paradise were flung ; 

Tho raw and nude from bad to good 
Inspire the mobile young. 

O it were sweet to guide the feet 

Of such prophetic birth 
To heights replete with wise conceit : 

'Twere paradise on earth ! 

II 

Sublime it were to he a man, — 
To he the what is smitten, 

To rank the sphere of self and law, — 
To meet agreements written; 

70 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

To act the part and fill the niche 

Of hut one creeping thing 
With purposed heart of harmony ; 

To move and touch and cling 
Amid despair; to long and yearn 

For solitary ray 
To lighten care, and early spring 

Belated dawn to day ; 
To serve and hear amid such pain 

With eager answering, 
Were worth the prayer of earth's own child 

And her divine st thing. 

XIV 



Tho lurid schemes were oft proposed 

For some great final good, 
To seek what seems phenomenal 

Were still misunderstood; 
To rip the seams of wrong and bring 

Incomparable good; 
To shrive where dreams or demons lure 

To fatal brotherhood, 
Were far from base, tho meanly frowned 

Upon by vision crost 
O'er jaundiced face from pedestals 

Of self-delusion tost 
As of disgrace; yea, vastly good, — 

As 'twere supremely true, — 

71 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Tho fiends displace the altar and 

The broken shrines pursue, — 
So good, in deed, to-day and now, 

As tempts all lofty zeal 
Beyond the greed that satisfies 

Or woos a sordid weal, 
Tho laid to shelf where prestige is 

The privilege and seal 
Of common self, — the selfishness 

Disclosed of coarse appeal, 
Instead of wares as worthy as 

The gentle Nazarene 
In sweetness shares with animals, — 

The creatures low and mean. 

Sublimely good it were to be 

The Man; if that, to be 
So understood, were balanced poise 

Thruout eternity. 



But O to be involved and mixt 

Implicitly with odds 
Of destiny, as purposed man 

To manifest the Gods, 
Were virtue worth the struggle, toil 

And superhuman shame; 
That lowly Birth, who enters life 

For life's Conclusive Aim, 

72 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Unfolds to earth amid the sneers 

Of public slight and blame, 
That nations stare and wonder at 

The power of his Name : 
Benignly fair, the sacrosanct 

Of passionate acclaim 
But clarifies the taunt of toil 

And bluff of indolence 
That jeopardize all virtue from 

The pedestals of sense. 

Thus involute and mixt and blent 

Inviolate with them. 
Is this recruit too crude to spring 

From so divine a stem ? 



He forges on, unmoved of thorn 

Or chafe, of taunt or sneer, 
And lifts the brawn of worth and will 

To heights of sane career: 
He forges on, impelled and thrust 

By that "far-off divine 
Event" of dawn, when truth and right 

And grace and good enshrine 
The native haunts of righteousness, — 

Inspired himself of these. 
Him nothing daunts of mortal sense, 

Chaotic drift or ease. 



73 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



No chrysalis dares wilder dreams 

Than he; no burning star 
Such heir of bliss : his deeds make glad 

The centuries, or mar 
The moments flushed with hopes of such 

Delight of gain, or dry 
The cheek sore crushed with tears: man 
doomed 

To struggle once and die. 

And yet with what abandon does 

He press the final goal, 
As, self-forgot, he haunts the tomb 

With majesty of soul ! 

As broken gleam is glanced athwart 

A yearning leaf or limb, 
So, it would seem, in last embrace 

Death hies away from him. 

XV 



Yet doubtful haste : it mars and hurts 
Life's best appointed hours, 

Lays direful waste on fragile youth 
And undiscovered powers; 

74 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Makes havoc where all hope is bent ; 

Tho prophecy foresees 
Love's vintage there, impartial law 

Foreshadows all decrees, 
Till hurtling clouds, in menaced threat 

Of death, have craped the skies 
With somber shrouds, as lavish hint 

Of most condign supplies. 



Oppressive rest and startling hush 

And stillness quell the storm, 
Nor stay confest outbursts of dread 

Beyond the helpless form, 
Till passion rifts, and lengthened grows 

The star-imperiled rent 
As darkness drifts : nor bursting suns 

Are born of accident. 



Tho suns be born of nebulae. 

Their beams no less profuse ; 
At night or morn they spread no shams, 

Attempt no subtle ruse; 
And whether high or low of birth. 

No dismal planets bar 
The coma-sigh of mirrored light; 

Sincere reflections are. 



75 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



An enemy has tampered here 

And here has left his sign, — 
The destiny of imp or God 

At sepulcher or shrine: 
The law of love, the law of hate, 

The law of ghost or shape ; 
The law above, the law beneath, 

Is law that none escape. 



So here amid the flush of doubt 

And spectral helplessness 
Must death be rid of lambrequins 

And doff illusive dress; 
Must here appear in open court, 

Illicit shames confess, 
Tho insincere, in hapless straits 

Must bear sincere duress. 



A signal wrong has come to man, 

Pervasive, thoro, fell; 
It fingers strong the grip of death,- 

It must have slunk of hell : 
Accurst, condign, impersonal. 

The bane of utterness, 

76 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

The ample sign that here is wrought 

The havoc of distress : 
The pang of tears, the curse of woe, 

The trail where Chaos trod 
With wreck and jeers the thorofares 

When men were cleft from God. 



'Tis so: the frail residuum, — 

The fringe that death concedes, — 

Condones no wail of human hearts, 
No cross where Jesus bleeds. 

XVI 



And so, transfixt of Love, the soul 

Must go in realms its own ; 
And thus, unmixt of stain, must reap 

Incarnate fruitage sown: 
Itself confess aberrant will. 

Itself no accident. 
Nor false caress of arrogance 

Makes it more permanent 
To shrive amid the wrecks of wrong, 

Of idols nude and bare : 
Bereft and rid of shameless shams, 

It locks of Love somewhere. 

77 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



XVII 



O star-eyed lure, thou pledge of love, 
Thou symboled trust of heaven, 

Tho insecure, who may not dare 
Accept the pledges given? 



Remotest limb may sway secure 
Where Being hangs the bout : 

''Complete in Him" : then why be rent 
Of least concern of doubt? 



And tho the child be trapt of ill, 

Be nebulously driven, 
*Tis yet beguiled of certainties 

To test the spans of Heaven. 



O star-eyed lure, the voice of love, 
Nor vaster reach of reason, 

Tho immature, thou embryon! 
Thou hast thy proper season. 



78 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Not yet, not yet ! too brief the tale ; 

No fleeting moments measured 
Can cycles set against the loss 

In which this child is treasured. 



The foe is pale : nor doubt is cast 
Across the issues pending : 

Avaunt, Mirwayle ! triumphant notes 
Angelic choirs are blending. 



And rushing back thru posted years 
To moments madly driven, 

No records lack assurances 

Of Christ's momentous Heaven. 



O star-eyed lure, thou child of love! 

What fairer gift of Heaven 
Could love assure? now rift and pale, 

Could darker grief be given ? 



79 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



XVIII 



Momentous calm, — all stress relaxt: 

'Twere Beauty void of breath, — 
Life's brief, rich psalm in rhapsody 

Is sung; they call it death: 
Nor balm can heal, nor art dislodge, 

The pallor of the dead; 
Nor last appeal disturb repose 

When once the soul were fled. 



"Of dust to dust" is writ so deep 
Imperious mortals know 

That ungorged lust and insolence 
Inflame the arrant foe. 



And yet — All hail ! — this insolence 

And lust abashed, forsooth, 
Themselves must quail beneath the gaze 

Of Sacrosanct and truth. 

4 

This hurt must have complete repair ; 
This fiend must find his foe 

80 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Within the grave, his pleasure-park 

And battle-ground of woe : 
Death there must meet Antagonist, 

Invincible and strong, 
Must there repeat his challenges 

For all this lust of wrong; 
Must there defend this insolence, 

This blatant bluff recall, 
From there ascend to victory 

Or thence to hell must fall. 



In last embrace Death hies away 

And leaves a smile upon 
The victor's face that thus declares 

No fatal ill were done: 
The answered call across the wastes 

And borders of the wild 
Where woes appall but hinder no 

Perfection of the child. 



Ah, pale Mirwayle, of good the ill, 

And last impertinence ! 
All hail, all hail to victory, — 

Triumphant recompense! 



8i 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Sublime the act : exultant Child 

Impels the fiend below, 
Despoiled and sackt of battle-fields, 

To tangled copse of woe. 



8 



So hastes there seasons when he shall tell 
The triumphs of His sorrows, 

With ample reasons why grief distraught 
Was left to other morrows. 

And when there blows those breezes fair 

Around Life's sacred leaven 
No evil goes with lures of death 

To breach the fays of Heaven. 

The breath of Life must fan the plains 

And hierarchs of glory 
When all is rife with cherub wings 

To hear the Victor's story. 



O star-eyed lure, thou hint of Gods, 
Thou ghost of predilections, 

Tho ghouls abjure, the wraiths confess 
Complying resurrections ! 

82 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



XIX 



No angel fraught with messages 

Of peace, no cherubim 
On wings of thought can gear one new 

Ambition on to him; 
No seraphim, upon the brow 

Of dawn, with poise of power 
And verve of Hmb, sent forth of love 

To balance crucial hour 
Of conflct dire with demonries 

From darkest pits of hell, 
Betray more fire of victories 

Than comes to him : nor cell 
Forgot thru drear, dread centuries 

And then be made to know 
That prime career of seraphim, 

Or soul, would overflow 
Its rims, could feel a vaster sweep 

Of life than man, since he, 
With wealth of weal, incarnate, throbs 

With immortality. 



Insatiate and urged of self, 
Enrapt but half revealed ; 

Immaculate! Carte blanche! no fane 
Too pure, no shrine concealed 

83 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

By sacred priest too holy for 

His touch ; no province where 
He may not feast desire that breathes 

The atmosphere of prayer, — 
The hoHest of hoHes try: 

With all assurance go, 
With unreprest tho reverent tread, 

Into that holy place, — 
Officiate assemblages ; 

As master there bestow, 
As on the great and good, the charm 

And ministry of grace. 

3 

Unquenched desires on rightful quest 

Lead him (as urgent swain 
Unblushed aspires to win a love, — 

Tho caution must restrain 
Him thru a day) to sound all depths, 

To clambei over worlds 
Thru right of way, to dream where space 

Her canopy unfurls : 
Himself in love of souls, so he 

Behaves in native lands : 
He drifts above star-paths profound, 

To spirit still expands. 

4 

Beatitude ! Delightful sphere 1 
All spirit realms are such, 

84 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Whose interludes and tendencies 
Impart divmest touch. 

Beatitude! To heed the call 

And be familiar friends; 
In life's prelude commune with all : 

Be peer where All attends. 

Beatitude ! And thus pursue, — 

Attain the lawful plan 
Of highest good in likeness to 

The wholly normal Man. 

5 
To meet the braves on equal planes 

He equal honors shares ; 
And yet he craves distinguished place : 

He seeks the toils and bears 
The sacrifice of suffering, 

He shuns no frowning cross 
Of woe; nor cries surcease if love 

Were but exposed to loss; 
And on the beams of Spirit-Being 

He leads the caravan 
Whose chasing teams were posting goals 

Before his race began. 



It were sublime a man to be ; 
To suffer and to wait 

8s 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

The rush of time that goads the vulgar 
And inflames the great. 

This child of God, tho halt and blind, 

And stung of guilt and need, — 
A crumbling sod whose issues name 

And justify the deed, — 
Must rise perforce of will and choice. 

Pursuant to a chase 
With Him in course along the ways 

Of purpose, worth and place. 

7 

Companionships of boundaries 

Of outerbounds inspire 
The thin, blanched lips of song to lift 

And voice the pulsing lyre ; 
To tempt and coy all harmony, 

Assault with frenzied tone 
The peaks of joy, till music breathes 

Beyond the broad, white zone 
Of time's vast good and echoes back 

In silver-luted rimes 
Of brotherhood across life's chords 

Her golden-fluted chimes. 

XX 

I 

O calm sweet breath of victory 
Inflame the astonished years, 

86 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Till blatant Death were ushered out 
In choruses of jeers! 

Since here no palms of anguish can 
Despoil the least frontier, 

Triumphant psalms of Being choir, 
Enraptured, sphere on sphere. 



For aye and long the light descends 

To templed arks of men, 
And turns to song and beauty in 

The grottos and the biers, — 
Transmutes the wrong, and poises right 

Athwart the shrines again, 
Till pipe and gong assuage the seas 

That surge with human tears. 



O startled song of Being's why. 

Peal out beyond the tides 
That, low and long, have moaned the wail 

Of immolated guides ! 



Resound the drill with cleft and trill, 
With music glad and free. 

Till echoes thrill resistent will 
With wildest melody. 

87 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



And, reinforced of echoed song, 

Make harmonies so high 
That stars divorced of burning wrong 

For earth will leave the sky. 



For once the stars belonged to earth, 
And angels had concealed them 

Behind the bars of children's eyes, 
Whence fairy-elfs revealed them. 



Now far above impartial blues. 

The seraphs winging by 
With song and love, like cherubs* souls. 

Hang out the stars on high; 
And nymphal eyes, in laughing awe 

And uncontained surprise. 
Reflect the skies aback to earth 

In purely human guise. 

O star-eyed lure, reproachless thing. 
What Easters fill thy morning! 

No sinecure inspired thy toils 
Nor wrought for thy adorning! 

88 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

8 

What wonder then the realms of love 
From far and wide extents 

Should meet again upon the heights 
Of cosmic parliaments? 



XXI 
I 

O Godward man! Presumptuous, 
Were not his welcomes plighted! 

Whose wits may scan the Infinite, 
If not of Him invited? 



No chaos dark can culminate 

This yearning upward trend ; 
No failure mark ambitions which 

Propitious Gods may send: 
And yet 'twould seem this waif of earth, 

With Eden at his back, — 
A broken dream, — must face and claim 

Earth's forests, track by track; 
Must blaze and rack the fastnesses. 

And strangely lone, must meet 
And answer back all boundaries 

Of conquest and defeat. 



89 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

3 

Distraught among the wrecks of time, 

Revengeful sinecures, 
What issues, sprung of sin and crime. 

Must ripen immatures? 

Propitiousness, the priest of time, 

In judgments swift and sure, 
Must shrive and bless uncycled rime 

To have all realms mature: 
Delightful trysts, companionships, 

Delectables of mind. 
Can wrench no twists to flaw the slips 

Or balk the ill-assigned. 

Yet he hath met the hidden foe, - 

Undaunted torn the mask 
That demons threat, — hath dared to know 

The secrets of the task. 



Where guilelessness hath met distress 

Abreast unequal courses, 
A fatal guess of wickedness 

Awoke discordant forces. 

Will he respond? as cattle dumb. 
To harnest wheel be driven? 

He goes beyond : he says, 'T come," 
Before the call is given. 

90 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Undaunted there himself has gone, 
From there hath made reply: 

"That he will bear remotest palls 
Incarnate Gods can try." 



No innocent, untold of arts 

Of speech or eloquence. 
Is eloquent beyond the parts 

Of artless innocence. 

Himself agreed of covenants, — 

Integrities sublime, — 
He wins the creed of permanence 

From fickle sands of time. 

The Mighty, bent of tender wail. 
Has mocked satanic fires 

To complement the far "All hail" 
By his express desires. 

Tho immature and creedless thing, 
Vast powers urge him on; 

Nor seraph sure of flight and wing 
To higher heights hath gone. 

And so enured of curse and sting 
Thru tardy Easters drawn. 

Himself is lured — a lapsing thing— 
To last resorts of dawn. 



91 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Opposed by cold, blind force without, 

Whose terrors paralyze 
The heart and hold and chill hot bloods 

And daze the partial eyes ; 
Beset within by ignorance 

And doubt, whose specters loom 
Like fiends of sin above the brow 

Of overhanging doom, 
His dirge unfolds a song of such 

Wild, unaccustomed strain 
That it resouls his faith, refires 

His blood and thrills his brain 
To keenest flights of passion, — heart 

And soul : unbending these 
Thru hapless nights he vanquishes 

All realms of toil ; he keys 
The spectral call of substances 

To melody and praise, 
He filters all forgetfulness 

And rescues all decays. 

7 

He soars and mounts, himself forgot, 

Beyond the utmost stress. 
Nor stays, nor counts the worth of what 

Is hither to success. 

Tho whipt of ill and cursed of lords 
And stunned of ignorance, 

92 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Some Master- Will has touched the chords 
And urges bold advance. 

He runs abreast of all desire ; 

If whim were that he creeps 
Or worms : if prest of need or tires, 

May slack but never sleeps ; 
Foretells the course of winds and stars ; 

Divines the lurking elf ; 
He tempts the source of power and heeds 

No bar beyond himself. 

8 

With heart afire he quarries down 

Beneath the crusts of worlds, 
Till pressing higher all central cores, 

Eurekas he unfurls ; 
With eager feet trips fearlessly 

The Milky Way, pursues 
The arching street of heaven where 

The angels cast their shoes. 

9 

And focust light, in prodigal 

Profusion, streams far out 
Across the night and puts the ghosts 

And goblins all to rout! 

And wherefore Light, if yet there comes 
Not with it or before 

93 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

The power of seeing whose puny orbs 
All provinces explore? 

Or realms of Right, tho unexplored, 

If souls may not adore 
The source of Being and turn their own 

Pet issues all about? 

XXII 



The harmonies of orchestrals, — 

The ministrants of sense 
And poesies of sound that thus 

Effect Omnipotence, — 
Weave trilogies and consonance 

Of souls ; discountenance 
The dark-browed hordes of gutterals 

That writhe a tortuous length 
Of harsh discords in sacred courts 

And corridors of strength, 
And cast glad eyes of beauty to 

The wards of Providence. 



And wherefore tone, without concrete 

Tho labyrinthine ears, 
Whose halls alone entrance her nodes 

And act as volunteers 



94 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Of mysteries whose elfish tricks 
Have taught to leap and bound 

Philosophies along key-boards 
Of tone's substantial sound? 

Or why defile those hallowed shrines 

With blatant panegyrics? 
And thus offend these gates of strength 

With blistering subtonics? 
Or pour the vile, discordant stream 

Of counterpane hysterics 
Against the trend of sullen facts 

In volumes of ironies ? 



Ears haste to lend their courts to faint, 

Elusory harmonics ; 
Reverberate with rhapsody, 

Explosive overtures 
Of delicate chromatics rare. 

But caught of amateurs ; 
And so attend the pleasantries 

Of Chesterfield euphonies; 
May e'en translate, by means of two 

Twin gods, — the heart and soul, — 
The tongues of hate to voices sweet 

As surging rhythmics roll. 
And thus commend discordances 

To love's refined control. 



95 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Tho matter shrive her portals with 

The mystery of dust, 
And death contrive to fortify 

The well-defended trust, 
Yet energy and Being surge 

And leap thru films of sense 
Till Potency reveals new charms 

Thru arts of eloquence 
And leaves Mirwayle with rue and flail 

And sheer incompetence. 

Such strictures knot to tendons, till 

The tissues, corded grown, 
Seem but the plot that mystery 

Is guarding as her own; 
She neither foils environment. 

Nor yet retards the strife. 
Since hindrance coils but visibles 

And outerness of life. 

Tho thus she numb the essences 

With such repulsive crusts, 
Mere things become more marvelous 

Thru sanctities of dusts. 
As Love despoils the wreck and bar 

And wards the leech's lusts 
Which dark Mirwayle had planned finale 

Thru overmath of rusts. 

96 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

5 

And wherefore life if but to grope 

And suffer, yield and die 
Amid the strife and fruitlessness 

Of Love's most bitter cry, 
That breaks across tumultuous 

Niagaras of grief? 
Affords no gloss for doubt and woe 

That caterwaul belief ? 

6 

And wherefore these ? of one, of all 

Combined, without the soul 
Whose harmonies direct and charm 

And elevate the whole ? 
Confirm the good, alarm the ills 

That conscience startles hence, 
Yet never could apostrophize 

Such deadly elements? 

And if the soul, then why not Him 

Who widens every thrall. 
Who gives parole to seraphim, 

To stars and dust and all ? 

xxni 

I 

A child at play ! "Thou kept of Him !" 
The Man of masteries 

97 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

No more can say : thou tender ward 
Of sleepless destinies ! 



Tho sparrow fell in direst straits 
And yielded breath by breath, 

When strikes the knell of struggle, God 
Gives notice of its death. 

Should nymph adore. He waits the while 

In patient contemplations ; 
Or angel pour its nectars out, 

Returns He salutations. 

Should child of His, however small. 
Have chance of hint of sorrow, 

Naught surer is that He regards. 
Nor waits the dawning morrow. 



No seraph more than thou or that : 
He waits for each for aye ; 

He tramps before untempered feet 
And guides the paths to day. 

Sublime it were to be that child: 
Reach out and up and on: 

Receive, confer, and strive and win, 
Where seraphim are gone. 

98 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Must virtue keep herself unstained 

From woridliness in vain? 
And roses weep their odors out 

As weeps the careless rain? 

Shall One not weep the ruthlessness 

Of anguish, woe and pain ? 
Shall He not sweep away death's last 

Congestions of the brain? 

No life-blade reap for sheaves fair fields 

Of living, golden grain? 
No blithe bo-peep make glad returns 

From stem Mirwayle's domain? 



Shall youthful glee but echo back 

For aye the caverned scream 
Of destiny, oblivious 

Of darkness and of dream? 

Shall Love lie dumb with joys unspoke; 

Or, finding tongue and voice, 
Shall he not come thus moved and bid 

Life-passions to rejoice? 

Shall flowers bloom for naught, or dews 

Thus fruitless water them 
Upon the tomb of innocence — 

Love's own Jerusalem? 

99 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRW^ YLE 

XXIV 
I 

Ah, tender thing! no ill can fall 

Across yon cloudless sky 
That does not bring a counter-throb 

To Him who stands so nigh. 



Came weal, came rest, came Fancy on 
The dawn of Love's caress, 

Came as Love's guest to-day ; nor comes 
To-morrow's laziness. 



Go time's behest, since Fancy nigh 

Awaits the inner bar, 
Go try the test of hearts : she lives 

Where Love's affections are. 

So, thread by thread, she gathers in, — 
Each golden strand agreeing, — 

Till shred by shred all webs are kin 
In Love's exhaustless Being. 

The shuttles flew, yet no one knew 
That soon the webs were ended ; 

How Mirwayle blew the dole and rue 
Where she her marvels blended. 

100 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Her toils were brief ; nor lingered she 

When early ebbed the tides ; 
Unfurled belief, unfurled the sails 

Since master Sailor guides. 

4 

But is she gone? She visits with 

The cherubs where the hills 
Are lit with dawn, and morning, flushed 

With love, her life fulfils. 

She trips along yon fairy lands ; 

She soon must hasten here 
With cherub song since now she breathes 

Angelic atmosphere. 

O cherub song and cherub self, 

And many, many more, — 
A fairy throng must come with her 

To see so weird a shore. 

5 
Too soon, too soon ! Ah, pain ! There came 

To-morrow's hastiness: 
At dawn 'twas noon ; she lingers there 

With more than time's caress. 

Now native there; congenial since 

Congenial friends are known 
As sweet and fair as Fancy is: 

She tarries with her own. 

lOI 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Gone weal, gone zest, gone Fancy with 

The dawn of sweet caress, 
Gone as Love's guest for aye, and man's 

Immortal upwardness. 



Seraphic thing ! seraphic spheres ! 

Seraphic comradeships ! 
There cherubs sing seraphic years 

With more than cherub lips. 

Gone leal, gone best, gone Fancy with 

Seraphic loveliness ! 
Gone as His guest to-day to His 

Imperial address. 

8 

Ah, tender thing no ill betides 

Thee now, imparadised: 
Nor song can sing that does not thrill 

With Cavalry and Christ. 

9 

A flower blew : wide sections bore 

Afar the sweet perfumes ; 
It died and drew new films of life 

Thru Nature's busy looms. 

102 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



10 

A symbol lies in every thought, 

In tiny bud and bower; 
Immortal ties are broke and bound 

In Nestor and in flower : 
And here we find a tender thing 

Of so divine a strain, 
So unconfined of mortals spheres, 

That nothing seems in vain. 

II 

Seraphic poise, so held of Love 

Amid life's helplessness, 
Must reap the joys referred to man 

When kindred souls caress. 

Must fix no low unworthy gauge 

On love's unmet desire; 
Must early know abandonments 

To reaches higher and higher. 

Must rest the worths of mortal love, 
Immortal Love must know; 

Must come to birth's exalted spheres 
That deeper love may flow. 

12 

Why sing to me of yesterdays? 
Of some to-morrow's visions? 

103 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

This present hour hath love's defense — 

Is love's appeal to Heaven; 
No urgency has sped decays 

To chafe to-day's Elysians : 
Why shrink and cower at that or thence 

With love now lover's leaven? 

But is she gone? How can it be? 

Undreampt, abrupt, unwarned: 
Withdrawn ! withdrawn ! by whose decree ? 

Is Heaven more adorned? 

So, love agrees that all is well, — 

That tho he start and quail 
There come decrees from down and dell 

That reassure the frail : 
That flagellate the imps of hate, 

Where death and doom prevail ; 
That reinstate the love of mate, 

Yet curse and blight Mirwayle. 



13 



O sing to me of yester-love, 
Of gladness free and wild ; 

Of memory, sunlit with all 
The sweetness of the child : 

"An infant crooned on natal breasts, 
New mother-joys transpired; 

104 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

But ere the booned and brief, rich years 
Are flown these hopes retired, — 

The common lot and heritage 
Of all ; and so are tears ; 

They dim and blot the visions of 
The fairest human years. 

**Has Fancy flown for aye, and left 
Love's sacred emblems strewn, 

As chance had thrown its mockeries, 
Athwart love's early noon? 

"This child of my imperfect love, 

This fairy dream of all. 
May yet tell why the frail are hurt 

And innocence can fall 
Beneath the frown of sudden death, 

And leave love quivering 
And stricken down of sob and sigh 

For such a tiny thing. 

"The smitten rose a fragrance yields 

Which, hitherto unknown 
And hastening, goes not hence until 

More bounteous yield is sown. 

"And so does she, abiding in 

The sacred flow of love's 
Delightful sea, become the soul 

Of what she early proves ; 

105 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

And leaves life freighted with memories- 

The real joys, forsooth, 
That men have dated in love's best-known 

Meridian of youth. 

"But rose and tears shall weave the webs 

A-most of love's perfumes ; 
Shall thrill the years, enrich the toils 

For fairer paths and blooms. 
Till fancied tastes materialize 

In lofty forms of touch. 
And barren wastes of barren life 

Have fruited overmuch. 

"O star-eyed lure the ecstasies 

Unloose, no palms confine 
For naught is truer — Thy life has palmed 

Its sweetness off on mine. 

"Tho passion sweeps the jewel from 

The casket, — torn away, — 
'Tis Heaven reaps this tender thing 

To bloom beyond decay. 

"No fairer bud could blossom there 

On life's integral stem, — 
For vital blood had mixt and blent 
• Soul-pigments in the gem. 

"No lily-white more fair, nor nymph 
Had yet to earth been given 

1 06 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

So kin to light as she; no realm 
More right to claim than Heaven. 

**A storm-brewed breath had swept across 

The fragile bud and left 
The blanch of death, and parent stems 

Are broken and bereft. 

"Mirwayle, Mirwayle! What reckless scorn 

Of weak and fragile things ! 
What sadder tale could herald bear 

Than what thy message brings? 

''Yet thru the nards of broken stems 

And buds of fragile parts, 
Unnamed regards have cherubs cast 

Athwart the broken hearts. 

''And these abide to nourish, charm 
And fare the heart and breast, 

That bear the tide of over-joy 
That love has here confest. 

"O star-eyed lure, diffuse all charms. 
So used of skill and sweetness. 

Where fays assure of life and love 
The pledge of thy completeness ! 

"Has Fancy flown for aye? Such sweet 

Aromas never fade: 
Tho rudely blown of ghost or shade. 

The sweet are sweeter made. 

107 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

''Go weal, go best, go Fancy on 
The wings of ether-light; 

Go try the crest of day, go where 
The Star of Life is bright. 

"Some by and bye — and wafted on 

The wish and prayer and sigh, — 
Above the sky, — where kinships meet 

In realms imparadised, — 
There she and I will meet, and know 

Before the feet of Christ, 
Thru His reply, such tokens still 

Are ours ; nor can they die. 

"No less can she since Love is by ; 

And Love and she grow young 
Eternally: her song of troth 

Is still but partly sung." 



14 



The fervency of yester-love 

Is still to be imparted: 
O sing to me of morrow-love, — 

Unseen, unheard, unhearted: 
The unexplained of hope deferred, 

Of love's incessant prayer, 
Tho unattained, but prophesies 

That Love is waiting there. 

108 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

But who can sing of what is yet 

To be Love's future capture? 
Or voice and bring the first asset 

Of love's immortal rapture? 
O sing to-day of what does now 

Eclipse enraptured morrows : 
"This angel fay has taught me how 

To vanquish future sorrows/' 

XXV 



Should shadows fall, then, high above 

Them must the sun appear ; 
Should griefs appall, love yet must shed 

For absent love a tear, 
With such delight that grief itself 

Becomes a sacred thing, 
Tho shrouded night should startle time 

With Death's unshielded sting. 



Remorseless fang, the tooth of Time, 
Revengeful, swift and sure; 

What issues hang of love sublime 
To poise the immature! 

Aye, he does dare the hidden foe. 
Undaunted wrecks the mask 



:09 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Where furies glare that he may show 
Love's universal task. 



Enraptured there, himself must call, 

Himself demand reply; 
And he must bear the utmost pall 

That signal virtues try. 

Must he respond? as cattle dumb, 
To harnest wheel be driven? 

He goes beyond : he says, "I come," 
Before the call is given. 



Himself agreed in covenants, — 
In masteries sublime, — 

Has won the creed of permanence 
From fleeting sands of time. 



Without offense, but coaxed of all 

The grooms of suffering 
And tolerance, capricious mates 

Could there concoct and bring, 
Such boundless speech appeals to all 

There is of God in him: 
With royal reach he swings the gates 

For all, — and core and rim. 

no 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



Reck not with griefs; nor hoard the joys 

Wide countershafts of souls 
Reshape beHefs, but guard employs 

Where life matured controls. 



XXVI 



The child at play : the man at toil : 

And neither recks of ease : 
Each counts his day supremely blest 

Whose own achievements seize 
The labored boon, the passion prest 

Of known and stern pursuit; 
Or vanished soon, scant difference 

Of what attainments boot. 

Each goes again : each serves and finds 

His own in what he tries 
To do for men: and habit scores 

The life : no habit dies. 

Each there entreats : each frames supreme 

Concern in what he gives 
To whom he meets : the action curbs 

The life : no fantom lives. 

Ill 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 



No right can fail, and soon or late 

The last respect shall owe; 
No hurt entails, and soon or late 

The least erect shall go ; 
No truth can pale, and soon or late 

The full effect will show; 
No ill prevails, and soon or late 

The Gods project it so ; 
No love need wail, and soon or late 

The last elect shall know; 
Mirwayle, Mirwayle! ah, soon or late 

Thou shalt detect thy foe ! 

To feel, to know, to-day and now, 
To breast the maelstrom so : 

No wit can go beyond the vow 
That love and troth bestow. 

No thing is barred companionships, — 

The tombs denied : Christ gave 
The love and marred the ill, — the love 

Survives : it has no grave ; 
Yet evil goes to sepulture : 

Forgotten ill forgets ; 
Who sanely knows the Easter-love 

Escapes profound regrets. 

3 

In vain? The rose is frail, yet no 
Affront of death can blast 

112 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

What God thus chose of tenderness 
And sweetness unsurpast. 

In vain ? Not so : Love knows how love 
With rapid Death hath run; 

From chase with woe, across all wastes, 
What signal triumphs won. 

No life is vain: no struggle, since 
The child receives and gives 

The glad refrain of joy: since Love 
Awoke all being lives. 

No life is vain, however brief, 

However great with ills ; 
Tho doomed to pain, life justifies 

The mission it fulfils. 



Since countless stars have cleft and sung 

Their first wild song, since then 
Across the bars of time and space 

Glad hearts commune; and when, 
*Mid rack and jar, are borne and shaped 

Triumphal archs of men 
What rift can mar, disturb or shift 

Life's architrave again? 

And can it be that Death forgets, — 
So relegates "All hails" 

113 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

To destiny that helplessness, 

Innately, wrong assails? 
That He, from hence, who cried : "Forgive/ 

Must heed the lavish wails 
Of penitence? That innocence, 

As strong or frail, avails ? 

Avaunt, avaunt, ah, wild Mirwayle ! 

Thou ghost of pallid ^hade, 
Tho shadows haunt and mar the tale, 

Thy mockeries are stayed. 

5 
All hail ! all hail ! the sovereign Prince 

Triumphant, kingdom come: 
All demons pale at His approach, 

Till demonry is dumb. 

All hail, all hail to victory. 

Exultant, — core and rim : 
No ghost can veil the vast immense, — 

A soul in love of Him. 

No Scourge entails : no hurt endures : 

The sacrifice replies 
In holy grails : the universe 

Is glad: it testifies. 



The All-High-Priest is love, — all love; 
The odds of all delights 

114 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Are all increased: all souls mount up 
Since Love inflames all heights. 

Must Love entail no disciplines, 

No martyrdom, no trial? 
Heed no far-wail of broken hearts 

And shrive no nectar-vial? 

Engage no tilt with Love itself, 

No master-spirits try? 
Where Death has built his rendezvous, 

No last Mirwayle defy? 
Nor meet flat charge of turpitude 

Where loss with harm converges ? 
Should taunt enlarge to Calvary, 

Feel naught of crimson surges? 
Arraigned of guilt, that death and doom 

United testify, 
And hurl no hilt of long offense 

To frailty closer by ? 

7 
All hail, all hail to suffering. 

Endurance and denial! 
No frail Mirwayle can veer life's course, 

Nor force life's master-dial! 

8 

Thru all the toil, thru all the Scourge, 
Thru all the haunts of grief, 

115 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Thru all turmoil, thru all the joy. 

Thru all the dumb belief; 
Thru barrenness, thru all the wrong, 

Thru all unheeded wails, 
Thru all excess of imp or fiend 

To where the good assails ; 

Thru threat of powers, thru drift and sham, 

Thru grasping after breath, — 
Strange gift of ours, — thru that far hope. 

Thru most exclusive death; 
Thru guilelessness, thru banter, charm. 

Thru all that love bequests. 
Thru patient stress, thru all the rasp 

Of anxious trial-tests; 

Thru all the flings, thru all the ebbs 

Of aim, and high rehearse, 
Thru all that brings the surging of 

A moral universe; 
Thru all the blunder, thru all the shock, 

Thru all the reach of mind. 
Thru all the wonder, thru all the man, 

The being undefined; 

Thru every reed, thru every thought, 

Thru every revelation. 
Thru every creed, thru every cross, 

Thru every aspiration 

ii6 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Of every soul, or soon or late, 
There comes the one desire, — 

To grasp the whole, to stand and call 
For universes higher. 



Thru all the throes, thru all the sighs, 

Thru all the dire convulsions, 
Thru all repose, thru all the choice. 

Thru all the sheer expulsions 
There comes to all, or low or high, 

In ranks of all denial 
The over-call: "No field is won 

Without heroic trial." 

Thru all deceits, thru all obscure 

Desire, thru all decay, 
Thru all defeats, all good to all 

Forgiveness must convey. 

Thru all earth's strife perpetual 

Desire aspires to be 
The soul of life — the choice of Love 

Thruout eternity. 

xxvn 

All hail ! all hail ! O Christ the Lamb ! 
And Heaven signals so! 

117 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Mirwayle, Mirwayle! no ill can damn 
Where crimson fountains flow ! 

All hail, all hail ! To compensate 

The caterwaul of woe 
No good can fail : and soon or late 

Abjectest death shall know. 

All hail, all hail! To justify 
The crimson cross of Christ, 

All ill must fail : as far, all good 
Must be imparadisedl 



ii8 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

What God thus chose of tenderness 
And sweetness unsurpast. 

In vain ? Not so : Love knows how love 
With rapid Death hath run; 

From chase with woe, across all wastes, 
What signal triumphs won. 

No life is vain: no struggle, since 

The child receives and gives 
The glad refrain of joy : since Love 

Awoke all being lives. 

No life is vain, however brief, 

However great with ills ; 
Tho doomed to pain, life justifies 

The mission it fulfils. 

4 

Since countless stars have cleft and sung 

Their first wild song, since then 
Across the bars of time and space 

Glad hearts commune; and when, 
'Mid rack and jar, are borne and shaped 

Triumphal archs of men 
What rift can mar, disturb or shift 

Life's architrave again? 

And can it be that Death forgets, — 
So relegates "All hails" 

113 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

To destiny that helplessness, 

Innately, wrong assails? 
That He, from hence, who cried : "Forgive/ 

Must heed the lavish wails 
Of penitence? That innocence. 

As strong or frail, avails? 

Avaunt, avaunt, ah, wild Mirwayle 1 

Thou ghost of pallid ^hade, 
Tho shadows haunt and mar the tale, 

Thy mockeries are stayed. 

5 

All hail ! all hail ! the sovereign Prince 

Triumphant, kingdom come: 
All demons pale at His approach, 

Till demonry is dumb. 

All hail, all hail to victory, 

Exultant, — core and rim : 
No ghost can veil the vast immense, — 

A soul in love of Him. 

No Scourge entails : no hurt endures : 

The sacrifice replies 
In holy grails : the universe 

Is glad : it testifies. 



The All-High-Priest is love, — all love; 
The odds of all delights 

114 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Are all increased: all souls mount up 
Since Love inflames all heights. 

Must Love entail no disciplines, 

No martyrdom, no trial? 
Heed no far-wail of broken hearts 

And shrive no nectar-vial? 

Engage no tilt with Love itself, 

No master-spirits try? 
Where Death has built his rendezvous, 

No last Mirwayle defy? 
Nor meet flat charge of turpitude 

Where loss with harm converges ? 
Should taunt enlarge to Calvary, 

Feel naught of crimson surges? 
Arraigned of guilt, that death and doom 

United testify, 
And hurl no hilt of long offense 

To frailty closer by? 

7 

All hail, all hail to suffering, 

Endurance and denial! 
No frail Mirwayle can veer life's course, 

Nor force life's master-dial! 

8 

Thru all the toil, thru all the Scourge, 
Thru all the haunts of grief, 

115 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Thru all turmoil, thru all the joy. 

Thru all the dumb belief; 
Thru barrenness, thru all the wrong, 

Thru all unheeded wails. 
Thru all excess of imp or fiend 

To where the good assails ; 

Thru threat of powers, thru drift and sham, 

Thru grasping after breath, — 
Strange gift of ours, — thru that far hope. 

Thru most exclusive death; 
Thru guilelessness, thru banter, charm. 

Thru all that love bequests. 
Thru patient stress, thru all the rasp 

Of anxious trial-tests; 

Thru all the flings, thru all the ebbs 

Of aim, and high rehearse. 
Thru all that brings the surging of 

A moral universe; 
Thru all the blunder, thru all the shock, 

Thru all the reach of mind. 
Thru all the wonder, thru all the man, 

The being undefined; 

Thru every reed, thru every thought, 

Thru every revelation, 
Thru every creed, thru every cross, 

Thru every aspiration 

ii6 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Of every soul, or soon or late, 
There comes the one desire, — 

To grasp the whole, to stand and call 
For universes higher. 



Thru all the throes, thru all the sighs, 

Thru all the dire convulsions, 
Thru all repose, thru all the choice, 

Thru all the sheer expulsions 
There comes to all, or low or high, 

In ranks of all denial 
The over-call: "No field is won 

Without heroic trial." 

Thru all deceits, thru all obscure 

Desire, thru all decay. 
Thru all defeats, all good to all 

Forgiveness must convey. 

Thru all earth's strife perpetual 

Desire aspires to be 
The soul of life — the choice of Love 

Thruout eternity. 

xxvn 

All hail ! all hail ! O Christ the Lamb ! 
And Heaven signals so! 

117 



THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 

Mirwayle, Mirwayle! no ill can damn 
Where crimson fountains flow! 

All hail, all hail ! To compensate 

The caterwaul of woe 
No good can fail : and soon or late 

Abjectest death shall know. 

All hail, all hail! To justify 
The crimson cross of Christ, 

All ill must fail : as far, all good 
Must be imparadised! 



ii8 



Al 10 »^»' 



/ll 



